Bike Party this week - Don't be a jerk

Grab your Schwinn and join up with DC Bike Party for a ten mile "Undercover" themed ride this Wednesday. Participants are encouraged to dress up in Spy vs. Spy inspired apparel: "think black and white, sunglasses at night, and fedoras." The route is top secret, but will end at Hawk n' Dove. Meet at 7:30 p.m. at the Dupont Circle fountain, the ride leaves promptly at 8:00 p.m. Free.

I've gotten several emails from people complaining about the bad behavior of cyclists on these rides.

I was disappointed with the amount of reckless behavior and antagonizing of pedestrians and motorists alike.

You can see (based the lights in the background) that the light they are riding toward is going to turn red around 1:10, and at 1:16 it is surely red because the cross street's walk sign is lit. However, the cyclists keep coming and coming and coming. I don't really personally care about them blocking cars (I don't drive in DC, so it's no skin off my nose), but at 1:33 you can see a pedestrian blocked from crossing. Then again around 2:33-2:37 you can see a pedestrian wearing a red t-shirt in another crosswalk who is struggling to cross while cyclist after cyclist swerves dangerously around him, regardless of the rule that vehicles should yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.

I've not been, and it seems like good fun, but it's important not to let the power that comes from riding in such a group go to your head. The organizers, one writer notes, are themselves respectful, but they can't manage such a large group.

I like the idea of bike party, and I'd hate to see it get a bad reputation as a group of selfish jerks riding around and refusing to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians (or even drivers - holding up traffic that has a green light is not the Idaho stop).

Comments

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As a participant of the bike party rides, it can be more disruptive to stop the entire group of 700 people at every single light. In the interests of moving the group through, sometimes keeping the group together going through red lights is really the best option. It really only takes a few minutes for the ride to clear the intersection. What's mistaken for 'bad behavior' is really just a way of keeping it more organized. 95% of the people on the ride do NOT know the route (nor are they expected to) so keeping it together is a way of preventing bands of lost cyclists from riding through the streets confused.

Vern, I kind of said the same thing you did in one of my replies. Someone read the ride behavior as an F.U. to drivers and I said it was likely "a combination of a fear of being left behind, the thought that "I'm only holding people up for a second", recognition that stopping won't make things better because no one else will stop and the low level pressure cyclists feel to keep moving to get out of the way of traffic behind them."

Still, making drivers and pedestrians wait an extra light cycle or two doesn't do much for advocacy and swerving around a ped with the ROW is not sharing the road.

Vern is pretty clearly elevating the interests of these particular riders over every other road user. That video and the emails WashCycle have received pretty clearly indicate that everyone else regards this as 'bad behavior.'
How about you knock it off and stop generating unnecessary animosity towards cyclists. It's on the organizers to reach out to their group, arrange the necessary ride marshals, and make that happen.

Just want to add I'm not a ride organizer. I know people that are though. They try to make the right calls at red lights and stop the group when getting to one that's about to turn. There are ride marshalls that try and do the same thing. But the ride has grown exponentially in size so it's not the easiest thing to just 'make happen'. (about 50 riders in Feb...now 600+).

@Kathy: Are you referring to the Tour De Fat Parade? I'm pretty sure those intersections were corked up against the signal.

I don't think there is any alternative for a large group unless the streets are officially shut down. And shutting the streets down is not a financially viable option for a group that probably has no money to work with.

If 2/3 of the group gets held back for 40sec by a red light, what should the front 1/3 of the group do? Stop and wait on the other side? And then what about the last 1/3 of the group? If those guys split the group up for red lights, then everyone would complain that the group isnt moving most of the time.

I bet the organizers read these comments. If someone has a realistic alternative that would work, I bet they would take it into serious consideration. And not just "Follow the law!". For example: 1. Prepare to coordinate the ride into up to three parts if split by lights, and each section can operate independently of each other. 2. Publish the map ahead of time and keep a volunteer on each corner where there is a turn. People then negotiate the route at their own pace and stop at all lights/stop-signs. If the group is split, each person can still find their way along the route. 3. ???? any other ideas? I love Bike Party, and I hate to see people getting upset about them.

Ahh, the old Critical Mass debate. I will point out that many cyclists -- including myself, when I was young and inexperienced -- find that "corked" rides, without pauses for cross-traffic, *feel* safer, since riders surround themselves with a cocoon of fellow cyclists. These rides also played a large role in building and sustaining large communities of cyclists in many cities, notably in the Bay Area (where Bike Party emerged as a friendlier alternative to Critical Mass).

Yes, it's also a problematic and law-flouting way to run a ride. It's also, speaking from experience, dang near impossible to get a group of more than ~50 cyclists to stop at every single light. It's also impossible for a volunteer group with a very diffuse organization and a broadly distributed message to "arrange the necessary ride marshals." The alternative isn't to have a ride with pre-registration fees, it's to have no bike ride.

If that's what you want to do, Vern, then it's incumbent on your group to obtain the necessary permits and arrange for police escort. That's what you do when your event begins to create unusual safety issues.

I've been on both bicyclespace and bike party rides. I have to say the bike party one was a little less agressive, but agree both send the wrong message. But it was awesome to be in such a group. The biggest solution is to work with the police and have the intersections controlled, but I know that goes against the kind of atmosphere of these rides.

yesterday, at aprox. 5:20pm, i followed a police car onto the met brach trail underneath the franklin st. bridge. i thought someone's had an accident, etc., but it didn't put it's lights on, no siren, nothing. i followed it all the way to r st., where it turned onto the road & proceeded away from the trail. i stayed right behind it the entire way & we were going 20 mph (according to my computer) & it barely slowed down to pass a motorized wheelchair which had stopped next to 2 young girls on bikes.

is this a good idea? i'm still a little flummoxed as to why it was there. is this trail now considered a "short cut" by the mpd to get to where they'd like to go? it didn't make any sense, since again, no lights, no sirens, to announce it's presence.

@Paytonchung & EC: Critical Mass was exactly the dynamic I was thinking about. It's all fun and games until frustrated drivers are pushing out into intersections and cyclists are swinging U locks. It may only be once a month for this ride, then again for BicycleSpace, and again for Critical Mass, etc until you've got a real problem.

@Atlas: Your posts pretty accurately captures what I meant by "arrange the necessary ride marshals." Group rides I've been a part of have to ready to adapt to splits. And on a casual ride, it's not usually a big deal to re-link over the next few blocks.

All of this talk about sending the 'wrong message' - excuse me. This ride, as someone else said, is once a month and takes place mostly downtown well after rush hour. I've even been really surprised to see the lack of traffic on the streets at this time. Sending the wrong message - not so sure. Thousands of people in restaurants, outside cafes, walking, etc are cheering and waving us on. We receive plenty of honks in support (you can tell by the type of honking), we have people at red lights asking us where it starts and how they can join. We have people running to Cabi stations to get a bike so they can join.

Sending the wrong message? Sorry but I think the good outweighs the bad here. Yall in DC are such sticklers for rules all the time you don't recognize a good think when you see it. Fact is, Bike Party may be the biggest catalyst to getting people on bikes this city has seen in a long while.

The once-a-month food ride from Freshbikes in Arlington gets a police escort through the city untit makes its way to quieter streets where it invariably spreads out. From there the cyclists generally follow traffic rules. The ride is always a huge deal, so the idea that these other rides "need" to operate this way or they won't happen is nonsense, unless the draw really is "come out and ruin traffic for the evening."

We can't have it both ways where we argue cycling is a mainstream transportation mode that deserves adequate public support and at the same time present bikes as a symbol of anti-authority counterculture.
TL;DR version: Get your permits and stop making excuses

The Tweed Ride folks break their huge ride into small groups of 30-50 cyclists. They dispatch a each serial every few minutes so that there isn't one enormous flood of riders. There are marshals with each serial, so everyone has a knowledgeable person to follow.

It works…ok. It would work even better if the marshals would consciously hold back their group if they were bunching up with another group.

I'll just add to the chorus of disgust: I am 56 years old. I have ridden to 50 years for transport and sport, not as a social activity or as political theater. Sure, I run lights and roll stops judiciously and I want to keep doing it! That is why I resent a bunch of asshole hipsters who have to feel everything they do is special and turn one of life's great and simple pleasures into a spectacle. All of us will pay for this adolescent arrogance. I can't wait until they all buy motorcycles or organize shuffleboard leagues.

Biking is one of the great simple joys of my life. At various times I've been a paid member of WABA, MORE, and Potomac Pedalers (currently just the latter).

Cyclists are not per se Very Special Snowflakes who are entitled to force other people to submit to them at a time and place of their choosing simply because they have enough bodies to form a mob.

It doesn't matter that you think this happens at a frequency, and for a total period, you believe to be trivial. If a few strangers surrounded me on the street and stopped me from walking for 90 seconds, but just once a month, I would not consider this a positive interaction.

The fact that some bystanders applaud the power of the mob is not a point in your favor, or theirs.

Break up the groups, get more marshals, print out maps or make them available if they aren't already... it's not like human civilization has never before contemplated this challenge. It's not a moon launch or the hunt for the Higgs boson.

@Atlas, I was thinking of the Down the Tubes ride that was organized by WABA about a year ago. Granted we were only about 50 riders but we went all over town and obeyed all the traffic rules.

I did also participate in the Tour de Fat for the first time. At least for that ride there were ride marshals at all or most of the intersections to stop traffic though I could see some drivers getting annoyed (justifiably). It seemed to me that they could have better used the marshals to stop the cyclists from going thru red lights/stop signs instead and used signage or add'l marshals to move the cyclists along the route.

Aside from drivers who are protected from cyclists, one really has to think about the impact on peds. During the two BicycleSpace rides I went on I saw swarms of cyclists going thru crosswalks with no regard for peds. That is what made me stop attending these rides. I tried talking to the organizers but my entreaties fell on deaf ears.

Millions of bicyclists have ridden in Critical Mass and/or Bike Party in numerous cities over the past 20 years (!), primarily on the West Coast but even as close by as Baltimore. Yet anarchy, bloodletting, and hand-to-hand street warfare -- all of which these teeth-gnashing anonymous online commenters suspects lurks right around the corner -- remain surprisingly scant.

Meanwhile, I know that many very important people in bike advocacy in Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco got their start in Critical Mass. I find these very agreeable people to be rather different from the stereotypes written above.

Honestly, I'm now too old for Mass-style rides, but a group bike ride shouldn't just be me riding alone with a map to a destination. Nor should every gathering of more than 10 bicyclists require a Park Service parade permit, a 7 AM Sunday start, and $1M in police overtime. (If that's even possible: witness Bike DC's disappearance.)

I can't say I'm pleased with what I'm reading about the Bike Party either. The problem is that any ill will generated by the too-large group will come down on non-participants, via bike haters who have their worst fears confirmed.

Angry bike haters will take one incident of a pedestrian at risk and use that as justification for his aggressive driving and menacing all others on the roads. (It's not lost on me that Mr. Aggressive Driver-Bike Hater is far more of a threat to pedestrians than even the Bike Party people seem to be in certain situations.)

So what if the group keeps growing? What then? 1,000 cyclists? 1,500 cyclists? With no organization and no permits to allow safe movement through public streets for such a large group?

I had never even heard of Bike Party (or Critical Mass, for that matter) until well after I started cycling. I don't know of anyone who started up with cycling because of either of those groups. (Maybe I'm not enough of a hipster or something.) While some might start cycling as a result, I think Capital Bikeshare, Bike DC, other bike rentals, improved bike infrastructure and organizations like WABA and Bike Arlington are more important.

Not to sound too anti-Bike Party, but I'm not too concerned about whether or not the event brings more people into the cycling community. If that's the way they are riding, then I don't see the benefit of having more cyclists with that attitude. No, most cyclists are not perfect (the same way that almost no drivers are perfect in terms of following the laws). But there's a huge difference between a single cyclists rolling through a STOP sign on an empty intersection and 600 or more cyclists holding up car and pedestrian traffic by doing something similar.

Youre right:
"Fact is, Bike Party may be the biggest catalyst to getting people on bikes this city has seen in a long while."

The venom here on this blog is all too predictable, from the comparatively conservative bicycle community (socio-economically privileged -- and blinded -- as it is...), and is to be expected.

This isnt a progressive town, by lots of measures. In fact, DC is a very apolitical town, on any definition of "politics" that is more than just "civics."

We went to Balitmore's Bike Party last month: we counted over 1200 people...on bicycles. on the car roads. It was great.

Hang in there Vern -- bike folks aren't known for their social insight...most have never studied social movements; and most have no idea of what the future USA should look like on any front, bikes and transport included. Most of the comments here simply rehearse a low-level mechancal, rote, understanding of social space in general, mch less the role bicycles have, could and should play in the car-dominated transportation in the USA.

Thankfully there's lots of great discussion, research and historical precedent that supports Bike Party as anything but "adolescent arrogance."

@Atlas: you've made the 21st century mistake of bringing up the right to assemble. Now the police can just build a cage in the street and let you assemble in that. For safety don't you know. And make sure to wear your helmet while you in the cage because more safety is always gooder.

Today me who has seen these things come and go says: See the problems from the other side and take care of them, or let someone else take care of them for you. For the bike folks, "take care of" does not mean ignore or minimize. Because for the police-folks, "take care of" will mean shut down. The police will definitely not take a "Let's make this work" attitude.

But if you insist to do the ride your way to the bitter end, three suggestions for better pedestrian relations.

1. educate participants to always take care of the weaker road used. For bikes that's pedestrians.

2. never pass in front of a pedestrian, always behind while aiming for the spot the pedestrian just vacated.

3. if you really want to seem like boy scouts, be boy scouts. Riders at front should identify pedestrians who want to cross, dismount and form a walking cordon with two or three bikes on the traffic side of the pedestrian to shed the flow of bikes away from the pedestrian. Safer and maybe an "Awwwwww, how cute," moment. After the escort, mount and catch up with the back of the pack which should be right there anyway. (ref. "solve your own problems before someone else does," above).

Smedley, you sound like a grumpy old man. There are worse things these kids could be doing (the point of my earlier comment). They are having good, healthy fun. They just need to figure out how to better organize their group ride.

Where's the evidence that inconveniencing drivers and pedestrians does little for advocacy? What evidence would you accept? How would one even prove that? Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

I mean this isn't that difficult a claim. How could inconveniencing other road users (in and of itself) possible be good advocacy. It may be neutral, but I don't see how doing so could be good for cycling advocacy.

If you insist, take it as my opinion, with no evidence to support it and certainly no evidence to contradict it.

1) We are open to ideas and suggestions for how to better organize. Please don't assume that that means we aren't working on a lot of these issues

2) We contact the commanders for each district we will go through before each ride with a map and an invitation for police to join us. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

3) That same map is always posted online before the ride. Each turn for the route is noted, and any rider is free to print it.

4) We schedule 2-3 "marshaling" rides for each route. This is after the leaders test the route. There will be one tonight at 7:30 in Dupont circle. Please come help s keep our growing group organized!

5) Leaders stop at every light, before the the crosswalk or cars waiting at the light, whichever comes first. I do this to allow pedestrians to cross. I was yelled at on the last ride because I "cut someone off" by stopping where I did. I asked that person not to ride with us anymore.

6)We do try to keep the group together, even if the end has to go through a red light. We do this to prevent cars from being "swallowed" by the ride. When that happens it is dangerous and frustrating for everyone. If some of the group stops at a red light and the leaders are already through, we pull over and wait.

I understand that there are issues with a ride like this, even making some other road users angry. I was also yelled at this morning for waiting at a red light outside of the bike lane. I tried to explain to the driver that I can bike in any part of the road and that I moved into the main lane because the bike lane ended past the intersection. She just kept yelling at me. My point is, some people are just going to yell no matter what.

Again, any suggestions and help with the ride are welcome dcbikeparty@gmail.com. Just remember we're all talking about this because we love to ride.

20 years ago, cyclists had no respect from motorists or city planners, who saw their mission as getting cyclists out of the way of traffic. Critical Mass was a reaction to that. Now we have the attention and some traction, we can translate that into meaningful change.

Its the same with any movement as it tries to go mainstream. We have moved from queer rights demonstrations to weddings. Marches on Selma, Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers have moved to a black President making it like his color doesnt matter.

Does this mean that things can't get better? No, but permenant revolution is the antithesis of mainstream.

Interesting to read all the comments at once. I'm not sure why the pro-status quos are so upset. Many take the washcycle view that folks in the ride should stop and wait a few seconds for traffic to flow legally. The pro-status quo view seems to say, no, everyone else should wait a few seconds for us to have our bike ride.

Seems like breaking the ride up into manageable chunks (David R's description of the Tweed Ride) would be a reasonable accommodation. Hell, you could even let the group that is planning to run lights be one chunk, then let those that are planning on obeying the law be their own chunk. That way everyone would be welcome on the ride.

Meanwhile, I know that many very important people in bike advocacy in Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco got their start in Critical Mass.

Ohhhh Very Important People are involved! Let us all bow down to Very Important People and future Very Important People.

Honestly, I'm now too old for Mass-style rides, but a group bike ride shouldn't just be me riding alone with a map to a destination.

Yes, those are your choices--shut down an intersection with 700 riders when it is convenient for you to do so, or ride alone--so very alone--with a map. A map I tell you!

I love the socio-economic analysis in the thread too. Apparently these rides magically only shut down intersections when they're being used by wealthy drivers and pedestrians. Perhaps PRISM is involved.

@Atlas: Careful not to break the cardinal rule of statutory construction, "read on." The regs start with the general rule of 705.8, requiring a permit in the absence of a 705.9 exception. The 705.9(c) exception is for an "immediate and spontaneous expression of views in response to a public event," which doesn't describe a preplanned monthly ride.

I'd second Ryan, and also note that there is probably no (or a weak) First Amendment protection. The regularity and themes of the ride tend to cut against these as being protected by the First Amendment. IOW, you can't stage a fun/sporting event and cloak it in "First Amendment" to get around permitting requirements.

I think everyone commenting wants Bike Party to succeed and continue. It's not a cliche to say we are on your side.

There has been lots of constructive recommendations. We have our perspectives on what's been happening and what should happen, of course. Y'all don't have to listen, but I think simply dismissing it as out-of-touch oldsters is a little shortsighted.

I too would love to see Bike Party succeed and continue but not at the expense of putting people in harm's way and breaking traffic laws.

Drivers have two ton machines which can easily kill us and there is also the contributory negligence issue in DC. Also drivers (and peds) greatly outnumber us, have far more money and political clout than we can currently dream about; therefore,the onus is on us to play within the rules whether we like it or not.

Regarding the comment above about Baltimore's open mindedness regarding bikes, it should be noted that while the DC area may be conservative DC beats Baltimore hand's down in terms of trails, bike lanes, and bike share!

While Bike Party might be fun it isn't going to change the infrastructure or laws in this town. It's a party, don't try to justify it as anything different. If you want to make real change, you have to get involved in local and national politics by giving to advocacy groups like WABA, becoming a bike ambassador, taking confident cycling classes, learning something about civil engineering, becoming a League instructor, fund raising, joining public advisory committees, obeying the laws, and writing to your elected officials. In other words, it takes *work*, not parties.

Theme rides can be a celebration of cycling, but they can also become a celebration of cycling counterculture. That's all fine if its just a fad, or its something you are doing right now. The problem is when cycling become all about counterculture it can undermines those who have been working for decades to make cycling normal and acceptable. In other words, when the hipsters are no longer in tight jeans and riding fixies, but have gained weight and 2 kids, they will STILL be able to use their bikes to get around.

"Theme rides can be a celebration of cycling, but they can also become a celebration of cycling counterculture. That's all fine if its just a fad, or its something you are doing right now. The problem is when cycling become all about counterculture it can undermines those who have been working for decades to make cycling normal and acceptable."

Uh...says who? YOU?

SJE and Kathy: can you point us to ANY research or ANYTHING that would illuminate your claims and comments as anything other than just talking out of your ass?

The social movement research is robust and has been around for a century. In fact, for social change, context matters mightily: sometimes agendas are advanced by merely showing up; sometimes by playing by the rules and working from within; sometimes by scaring the shit out of those who have the power; sometimes a mixture of these and more...

i love these forums! everyone weighs in, nobody references anything that is third-person confirmable, and the unquestioned nature of the "rationality" of *individual* human beings is never questioned (and it certainly is dead wrong!) -- and everyone has an "opinion."

SJE and Kathy dont know diddly about the history of critical mass...there is a good anthology of it by chris carllson they can consult...

at least washcycle had the balls to admit his claim about advocacy is mere exhortation.

there is some interesting research on these issues for those interested:

*traffic* by Vanderbilt
*one less car* by Furness
and especially Cotton Seiler's *Republic of Drivers.*

btw: MoveDC is imagineering the transportation and land use future in DC....although the future looks just like the present. EPIC FAIL.

Folks, quality of life, AND THE HUGE SUBSIDY and TRANSFER of wealth required to advance the car culture (and that is killing the USA economy...even a shlub like NYT's Tom Friedman gets this...) is not being seriously questioned by MoveDC...in DC, about 60 percent of the land mass is covered in asphalt (impervious surface) -- this is stupid. THIS IS STUPID. But MoveDC is not even questioning this...

We need car-free boulevards for quality of life in DC, not just for bikes. We need dedicated bus-routes on car free routes, as is used all over the world. We need car use to pay it's way and stop being subsidized (after all, the AAA is all about free market capitalism, isnt it??)!

I love you, man. It's true that we who have been weathered by decades of fighting for our rights as cyclists forget that only those who don't believe in impossibility can make the impossible happen, even if it is rare. But . . . making the possible harder to achieve in the pursuit of the impossible is not really progress. And dissing those who are on your side isn't going to make the impossible any more likely, either.

Michael: I may be showing my age, but I've heard it all before. Everyone thinks there movement is new and fresh and making real change and the man doesnt get it: all we need is to keep protesting. Then there comes a point where the revolutionaries have to govern or find ways to accomodate with the authorities to get what they want. If you want examples, study any of the Russian, French or Chinese revolutions. The New Testament describes a lot the dynamic between revolutionaries versus accomodationists. More recently, the Civil War, civil rights, gay rights, occupy wall street, or the current GOP.

I have three degrees in public administration and economics. I am a transportation economist by profession and have been for 15+ years. I currently work as an economist at a DOT agency and am the VA representative of the Air and Quality Public Advisory Committee to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments where we spend a lot of time with officials and experts on how to improve transportation in the area as well as on the effects cars have on public health. I also worked overseas for an international engineering firm (Arup) managing multi-billion dollar projects ranging from public transit, rail, airports, pedestrian ROW, dry ports, and highways. I also worked full-time as a manager at Amtrak focusing on strategic issues.

During college and grad school I also worked for various public officials (the Governor of MA and a MA state representative). I am also very active with the Bike Arlington community and WABA.

Therefore, by profession and in my personal time, I have been thoroughly immersed in transportation and public advocacy work for decades. I have a sizable library of books on the topic as well as file cabinets of research. My masters degree specialized in transport economics.

I think by any measure I have done more in the real world of transportation and advocacy than someone who has merely organized a bike party.

As for the specific data that Michael so wants, I think that this blog is a good gauge. As I said before, if a bunch of committed and long term cyclists are coming down on a cycling idea, its probably not going to be well recieved.

This is not a specific function of me, or Washcycle members. Bike Snob is a professional blogger whose millieu is rants about revolutionary bike activists. Copenhagenize and others were openly critical of World Naked Bike Day as doing more harm than good to cycling, for the same reasons I espouse here.

Maybe I'm talking out my rear end, but it sounds like a lot of people who should be on your side are singing (or farting) the same tune.